Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

THREE

"Tell me about all the stuff in the guest-house," Todd asked Katya as they walked. "Where does it all come from?"

"The large tapestry in the living room was made for The Sorrows of Frederick, which was a terrible picture, but the designs were magnificent. The castle they made for the banquet scene! You never saw anything so grand in your life. And all the Egyptian stuff was from Nefertiti."

"You played Nefertiti?"

"No, Theda Bara played Nefertiti, because the front office said she was a bigger star than I was. I played her handmaiden. I didn't mind that much because in my mind it was a better role. Theda just vamped her way through her part. Oh Lord, she was bad! But I got a little chance to act. In the end Nefertiti had my lover killed because he was in love with me, not her, so I threw myself off a boat into the Nile."

"And drowned?"

"I suppose so. Either that or I was eaten by crocodiles." She laughed. "I don't know. Anyway, I got some of my best reviews for Nefertiti. Somebody said I could have stepped right out of history . . ."

The evening was beginning to draw on as they walked, taking the simple and relatively direct path which Todd had failed to find on his way up. It was the first night in a long time that Todd hadn't sat at his bedroom window, drinking, brooding and popping pills.

"What about the bed?" Todd said. "Where did that come from?"

"That was from The Devil's Bride."

"A horror movie?"

"No, it was this strange picture directed by Edgar Kopel. Very shocking for its time. The bed was supposed to have been owned by the Devil, you see. Carved to his design. And then the hero, who was played by Ronald Colman, inherits it, and he and his bride use it for the bridal bed. But the Devil comes for the bride, and then all Hell breaks loose."

"What happened in the end?"

"The Devil gets what he wants."

"You?"

"Me."

"I don't think that would work for modern audiences."

"Oh it didn't work in 1923. They stayed away in droves."

They walked on for a while in silence. Finally Katya said: "What's troubling you?"

"I can't make sense of what you're telling me. The pieces don't fit—"

"And it frustrates you."

"Yes."

"Maybe it's best you just don't think about it."

"How can I not think about it?" he said. "This place. You. The posters. The bed. What am I supposed to make of it all?"

"Make whatever pleases you," she said. "Why's it so important that you have an explanation for everything? I told you: things are different here."

She caught hold of his hand, and they stopped walking. There were insects in the grass all around them, making music; overhead, the stars were coming out, their patterns as familiar as the din of cicadas; and tonight, as strange. His doubts were contagious. The fact that he didn't understand how it was possible this woman could have lived the life she claimed to have lived spread confusion into every other sign the world brought him. What was he doing here, in between the music in the grass and the brightening stars? He suddenly seemed to understand nothing. His face throbbed, and his eyes stung.

"It's all right," she said softly. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I'm not afraid," he said.

It was the truth, in a way. What he felt was not fear, it was something far more distressing. He felt lost, cast off from every certainty.

But then he looked at her face, at her perfect face, and he felt a calm come over him. So what if he was adrift? So were they both. And wasn't it better to be with her, sharing her gentle madness, than to be alone in this unforgiving world?

He leaned toward her, and kissed her on the lips. Nothing overtly sexual; just a tender kiss.

"What was that for?" she asked him, smiling.

"For being here."

"Even though you think I'm a lunatic?"

"I didn't say that."

"No, but you think it. Don't you? You think I'm living in a fantasy land."

"I'm taking your advice," he replied. "I'm making whatever I like of it. And I like being here, right now, with you. So the rest can go to Hell."

"The rest?"

"Out there," he said, waving his arm in the general direction of the city. "The people who used to run my life."

"To Hell with them?"

"To Hell with them!"

Katya laughed. "I like that," she said, returning his kiss in the midst of their laughter.

"Where now?" he said.

"Down to the pool?" she replied.

"You know the way?"

"Trust me," she said, kissing him again. This time he didn't let her escape so lightly, but returned her kiss with some force. His hand slipped up into her hair and made a cradle for her head. She put her arms around his waist, pressing so hard against him it was as though she wanted to climb inside his skin.

When they broke the kiss they gazed at one another for a little time.

"I thought we were going walking," he said.

"So we were," she said, taking his hand again. "The pool, yes?"

"Do you want to go back to the house?"

"Plenty of time for that later," she said. "Let's go down to the pool while there's still some light."

So they continued their descent, hand in hand. They said nothing now. There was no need.

On the other side of the Canyon, a lone coyote began to yap; his voice was answered by another higher up on the ridge behind them, then another two in the same vicinity, and now another, and another, until the entire Canyon was filled with their glorious din.

When Todd and Katya reached the lawn there was a small, scrawny coyote loping across it, giving them a guilty backward glance as he disappeared into the undergrowth. As he vanished from sight, the pack ceased its din. There were a few moments of silence. Then the insects took up their music again.

"It's sad, the way things have declined," Katya said, looking at the sight before them. The starlight was forgiving, but it couldn't conceal the general condition of the place: the statues missing limbs, or toppled over and buried in vines; the pavement around the pool cracked and mossy, the pool itself stained and stinking.

"What's that?" Todd said, pointing out the one-story mock-classical structure half-hidden by the cypresses around the pool.

"That's the Pool House. I haven't been in there in a very long time."

"I want to see it."

It was a larger building than it had appeared from the front, and uncannily bright. There were several skylights in the ceiling, which ushered in the brightness of moon and stars, their light bouncing off the silky marble floor. In the center stood a cocktail bar with mirrors of marbled glass behind the glass shelves. Even after all these years there were dozens of bottles on the shelves—brandies, whiskies and liqueurs.

"You used the pool a lot?" Todd said.

"We had the best pool-parties in Hollywood."

Their voices echoed off the glacial walls as they spoke, coming back to meet them. "And the people who came here, knew . . ." Katya said. "They knew." Letting the thought go unfinished, she moved past him to the bar.

"What did they know?" he said.

"Not to make any judgments," she replied. She slipped behind the bar, and began to survey the rows of bottles.

"I don't think we should try drinking any of that stuff," he said. "I've got fresh booze in the house if that's what you want."

She didn't reply; simply continued to survey the selection. Finally she decided upon one of the brandies, and taking the bottle by the neck she pulled it forward. There was a grinding noise from behind the mirror as some antiquated mechanism was activated. Then the mirror slid sideways three or four feet, revealing a small safe.

Todd was intrigued. He hopped over the bar to get a better look at what Katya was up to. She was working on the tumbler lock; he could hear a faint clicking as she flipped it back and forth.

"What's in there?" he said.

"We used to have a book—"

"We?"

"Zeffer and I. We just kept it for fun."

"A book of what?"

"Of party pieces," she said, with a little smile. "Who did what to whom. And how many times."

"You're kidding!"

She turned the lock one more time, and then pushed down on the handle and pulled the door. There was a cracking sound, as the decayed rubber seal broke. Then the door swung wide.

"Are there any candles?" she said to him. "Look in the cupboard there between the columns, will you?"

Todd did as he was instructed, and found several boxes of plain white candles on the shelves. One was open, and the heat of many summers had turned the contents into a single box-shaped slab of white wax. But the contents of the other two boxes were in better condition: under the first layer, which was partially melted, there were salvageable candles. He set up six of them on the bar, seating them in their own dribblings so that they wouldn't fall over.

Their flickering yellow light flattered the marble interior; and by some strange arrangement of the walls it seemed he heard the whispering of the flames multiplied. Indeed they almost sounded like voices; uncannily so. He looked around, half-expecting to see somebody flitting between the columns.

"Ah, voila!" said Katya, reaching into the depths of the safe.

She brought a small, thick book out of the little safe along with a sheaf of photographs and set them all down on the bar in the light from the candles. The book looked like a journal, bound in dark red leather. When she opened it he saw that its handwritten contents were arranged symmetrically; two columns to each page.

"Take a look," she said, obviously delighted with her find.

He picked up the book and flicked through it. Almost three-quarters of its pages were written on, sometimes in the two-column configuration, sometimes simply filled up from top to bottom. He turned to a page of the former variety. On the left-hand side of the pages was a column of names; on the right hand, a column that was far harder to make sense of. Occasionally there were names, but more often letters and symbols, some of them resembling obscure mathematical equations. His puzzlement amused her.

"Think of it as a history book," she said, offering a teasing smile along with the clue.

"A history of what?"

"Of better times."

Todd flipped through the pages. Now and again, among the names, he came upon some he knew: Norma Talmadge, Theda Bara, John Gilbert, Clara Bow; all movie stars of another era.

"You knew all these people?" he said to her.

"Yes, of course. This was the place to come, when you wanted to have some fun. Every weekend, we'd have parties. Sometimes in the pool. Sometimes in the house. Sometimes we'd have hunts, all through the Canyon."

"Animal hunts?"

"No. People hunts. People treated like animals. We whipped them and we chained them up and . .. well, you can imagine."

"I'm beginning to. Wow. You had Charlie Chaplin up here, I see."

"Yes, he came up here often. He used to bring his little girls."

"Little girls?"

"He liked them young."

Todd raised a quizzical eyebrow. "And you didn't mind?"

"I don't believe in Thou Shalt Not. That's for people who are afraid to follow their own instincts. Of course when you're out there in the world you've got to play by the rules, or you'll spend your life behind bars. They'd lock you up and throw away the key. But this isn't the world. This is my Canyon. They called it Coldheart Canyon, because they said I have a soul like ice. But why should I care what people say? Let them say whatever they want to say, as long as their money pays for the little luxuries in life. I want my Kingdom to be a place where people could take their pleasures freely, without judgment or punishment.

"This is Eden, you see? Only there's no snake. No angel to drive you out either, because you did a bad thing. Why? Because there were no bad things."

"Literally none?"

She looked at him, her stare luminous. "Oh you mean murder, perhaps? We had one or two murderers here. And we had sisters who'd fucked their brothers, and sons who fucked their mothers, and a man who liked having children suck him off."

"What?"

"Ha! Now you're shocked. His name was Laurence Skimpell, and he was as handsome a man as I've ever met. He had a contract at Warner Brothers, and they were going to make him a star. A big star. Then this woman turns up at the studios with a child, who she said was Skimpell's. Warner Brothers have always been very loyal. They offered the woman money; said they'd put the child up for adoption. But as she got up and left she said: You don't understand, this isn't his offspring. This is his lover."

"Oh Jesus Christ."

"That was the last we ever heard of Laurence Skimpell."

"That's a ridiculous story. I don't believe a word of it."

She laughed, as though perhaps this time she was inventing a little. "You're in here," he said, coming to some mentions of Katya Lupi. "And there's a long list of men . . ."

"Oh that was a competition we had."

"You had all these men?"

"It was my Canyon. It still is. I can do what I like here."

"So you let people do what they wanted?"

"More or less." She returned to the book. "You see the symbols beside the names?"

Todd nodded, somewhat tentatively. The conversation had taken a turn he was by no means certain he liked. It was one thing to talk about freedom in Coldheart Canyon; it was another to have her boasting about babies sucking dicks. "All the symbols mean something different," she said. "Look here. That squiggle there, that means snakes. That knotted rope? That means being bound up. The more knots in the rope the more bound the person likes to be. So . . . here . . . Barrymore ... his rope has six knots in it. So he liked to be very well tied up. And then there's a little flame beside him. That means—"

"He liked to be burned?"

"When he was sober. In the end, I stopped inviting him because he got so drunk and so abusive he wasn't any fun."

"Ah! So you did make a judgment."

She considered this for a moment. "Yes. I suppose I did."

"Did he spoil the secret? Once you didn't invite him anymore. Did he start telling everyone about what it was like up here?"

"Of course not. What was he going to say? Even he had a reputation to keep. Besides, half of Hollywood swam in that pool at one time or another. And the other half wished they could. Nobody said anything but everybody knew."

"What . . . exactly? That there were orgies here? That women got fucked with snakes?"

"All of that, yes. But mostly that people came back from Coldheart Canyon spiritually changed."

"You mean that? Spiritually?"

"Yes. Spiritually. Don't look so surprised. The flesh and the soul are tied together."

Todd looked confused.

"Louise Brooks said to me once: there's nothing they can give that would be worth my freedom. She partied with the rest of us, but in the end she gave it all up, and moved away. She said they were trying to take her soul by boring her to death."

"So she gave up making movies?"

"Indeed she did. But Louise was a rare example. You know what usually happens: you get addicted. And the studio knows you're addicted. You need your hit of fame every couple of years or you start to feel worthless. Isn't that right? So as long as they can keep giving you a little time in the spotlight, they've got you in their pocket."

Todd continued to flip through the book as Katya spoke, as much because he didn't want to meet her gaze as because he was interested in the pages. All that she said was true; and it hurt to hear it: especially when he had done himself so much harm because of his appetite for the spotlight.

A sound, behind him. He looked up at the mirror behind the bar. It wasn't his wounded face that caught his eye, however, it was a motion of something, or somebody, passing by the door.

"I think there's somebody out there," he whispered.

Katya looked unsurprised. "Of course. They know we're here." She took the book from his hand and closed it for him. "Let me introduce you to them," she said.

"Wait." He reached for the photographs that Katya had also brought out of the safe. They still lay where she had put them, on the top of the bar.

"You don't need to look at those now," Katya said.

"I just want to take a peek."

He began to flick through the sheaf of photographs. There were probably forty or so; most in worse condition than the book, the prints made hastily, and poorly fixed, so that large parts of the image had faded to speckled sepia or to black. But there were still sizable portions of many of the photographs visible, and the scenes they depicted confirmed every obscene or outlandish detail she'd offered. They weren't simply images of men and women coupling, but pictures of the most extreme forms of sexual gratification. In one, a naked man was bound to a metal chain, the cords that held him biting deep into his flesh. A woman wearing just a black brassiere was flogging his chest and his groin. Assuming this wasn't a set-up (and something about the quality of all the photographs suggested that all of these were the real thing), then the woman was doing her victim some serious hurt. There was blood running down his chest and stomach from blows she'd delivered there; and there appeared to be welts on his thighs and his dick, which stood testament to the pleasure he was taking in this. In another picture, some way down the pile, the same man (his face seemed vaguely familiar to Todd, though he couldn't put a name to it) had been redeemed from his bondage and lay on the paving stone beside the pool while another woman (this second completely naked) squatted over him and loosed a stream of urine on his wounds. To judge by the expression on the masochist's face, this hurt more than the whipping. His teeth were gritted, his body locked, as though he were only just holding back an unmanly scream.

"Wait. I know who that is," Todd said. "That's—Christ! It can't be."

"It is."

"He was always the Good Guy."

"Well, sometimes Good Guys like getting pissed on."

"And her? She was always so sweet in her movies. What's her name? Always the victim."

"Well, that was part of the game you got to play in the Canyon. Up here you do the things the studios wouldn't let you do. Rub your face in the dirt for a while. And then on Monday morning you could brush your teeth and smile and pretend you were all-American again. That's what people want. An illusion. You can do what the hell you like out of sight. Just don't spoil their dreams. They want to believe you're perfect. And it's hard to put on a perfect face every day without going crazy. Up here, nobody was perfect, and nobody cared."

"Jesus," Todd said, coming across a picture of scatology. "Who's the pooper?" Katya turned the picture round to get a clearer view of the woman's face. "That was Edith Vine. At least that was her real name. I can't remember what they called her. She had a seven-year contract with RKO, but they never made a star out of her."

"Maybe they were afraid one of these would leak out and they'd lose their investment."

"No, she just kept getting pregnant. She was one of those women who just had to look at a man and bam, she was eating anchovies and icecream. So she kept getting abortions. Two, three a year. And her body went to hell."

"Where did she end up?"

"Oh she's here," Katya said. "We don't just take the famous up here in the Canyon. We take the failures, too."

Without fully understanding what he'd just been told—perhaps not entirely wanting to—Todd moved on to another picture. A man who'd played cowboys most of his life was the center of attention, all laced up in a girdle that made his waist as narrow as any showgirl's.

"That's one for the family album."

"He liked to be called Martha when he was dressed like that. It was his mother's name. In fact, I think it was his mother's corset."

Todd laughed, though he wasn't sure where the laughter was coming from. Perhaps it was simply that the parade of perversions was so excessive there was nothing to do, in the end, but laugh.

"Christ. What's that?"

"A jar of bees, and Claudette's breast."

"She liked to get stung?"

"She would scream like her lungs were going to give out. But then she'd have somebody pick the stings out with their teeth."

"Fuck."

"And she'd be so wet you could fill a shot-glass from what came out of her."

It was too much. He put the photographs down. Bees, piss, corsets. And they were only the pictures he could make sense of. There were plenty more that defied easy comprehension; arrangements of limbs and faces and artifacts which he had no appetite to interpret.

Before he left them where they lay, there was one question remaining that he simply had to ask.

"Are you in any of these?"

"Well I'm in the book, aren't I?"

"So all that stuff you were telling me in the Gaming Room, about offering yourself to the winner? All that was true?"

"All that was true."

"Just how far did you go?"

She turned the photographs over, putting their excesses out of sight.

"As far as you want," she said, smiling. "Then just a little further."

She unnerved him, and she knew it. She took hold of his hand. "Come on," she said, "let's go outside. We're missing the dusk."